The Black Diamond

The Black Diamond in Copenhagen was finished in 1999 and is an extension to the Royal Library. The building is shiny, black facets mirror the sea and the sky at the harbour front.

A large incision cleaves the building into two formations and gives light to the atrium inside. The atrium connects the city with the sea outside as well as the old and new library buildings. The glass facade is held by iron girders weighing approximately one metric tonne per metre.

Per Kirkeby's impressive 200 square-metre painting adorns the ceiling of the Black Diamond.

Apart from the main functions of a library, the building houses The National Museum of Photography, a bookshop, a café, a restaurant and the Dronningesalen concert and theatre hall which seats 600.

Here, you can see Søren Kierkegaard's manuscripts which are kept safely in Royal Library's Søren Kierkegaard Archive. No one outside the library has access to the impressive, large manuscript collection, and only a very few inside.